Simple and Affordable: Elevating Your Dog's Happiness with Household Enrichment

Enrichment is a key part of each dog’s life and is defined by participating in activities that stimulate their mind, senses, and natural behaviors such as sniffing, chasing, chewing, running and much more!  

There are so many fun ways we can add enrichment to our dog’s daily life, even just with meals, but here are a few easy ways you can implement enrichment using some common items found around the house!

Frozen Treats 

• You can simply freeze some dog food with bone broth or water mixed in with other yummy treats like peanut butter, banana, blueberries, carrots, etc.

Scent exercises/Find it

• Play hide and seek with their food!  You can hide some food around the house and allow them to use their noses to search out the kibble or even just fold some up in a towel to create a snufflemat! You can always switch the food for a toy.

Training

• Do some obedience exercises.  This doesn’t take much room or time and you can make manners and listening super fun which will make listening around distractions even easier.

Agility Course

• This will take some space or creativity but you can use simple objects like two chairs and a broom to teach dogs how to jump or blankets to act like a tunnel.  These are especially stimulating for dogs who have never experienced any agility work previously.

Exploring outside 

• Take your dog outside in the yard or on a walk and let them sniff whatever they want.  Dogs explore through their noses so by letting them go out with the full intention of letting them sniff what they want will stimulate their mind and leave them more tired when you come back in.  Dogs have to potty anyway so if they’re interested in smelling this can be a good opportunity to take advantage of a potty break to add some stimulation.

With any enrichment activity, the important part is to make sure you and your dog are both having fun!  Sometimes that means taking a break, switching the reward, or even trying something else entirely.  If you’re struggling to work through all of these, always feel free to email us directly at Train@bigpawsoftheozarks.org and we will try our best to walk you through some options to help make those days where you’re stuck inside the house more enjoyable for everyone!